The present disclosure relates to an electric oven, and more particularly, to an electric oven that also functions as a hood.
In general, an electric oven is a cooking apparatus that uses microwaves or/and a heater to cook food. Recently, electric ovens with hoods attached at the bottom thereof have been manufactured in order to perform the function of a hood in filtering and exhausting air including impurities generated during cooking of food back into an indoor space or to the outside.
Such an electric oven is selectively installed with a hood that suctions and filters air including impurities through its bottom, to either exhaust the air back into the indoor space forward from the electric oven or upward to the outdoor environment. To perform the function of a hood, a hood fan within the hood/electric oven assembly is selectively installed so that its exhausting port faces forward or upward to exhaust air.
However, the following limitations exist with such related art electric ovens with hoods.
First, when the exhaust port of the hood fan is installed facing upward to exhaust the filtered air to the outdoors, contaminated air from the indoor space can also be suctioned through a passage for discharging filtered air back into the indoor space. Thus, the suctioning force of the hood fan is reduced.
Also, as described above, when contaminated air from the indoor space is suctioned through the passage for exhausting filtered air back into the indoor space without being filtered, the contaminated air can contaminate the hood fan.